1941-1959 First Mainframe Systems - Server Processor Milestones

Slideshow: Server Processor Milestones
By Wolfgang Gruener September 9, 2012 11:50 AM
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1941-1959 First Mainframe Systems - Server Processor Milestones

It is fascinating to walk down the line of computer processors since the first modern programmable computer, Konrad Zuse Z3 from 1941, until today. Consider Zuse's electromechanical machine, which five years later saw the massive ENIAC (see picture) from 1946, which used 17,468 vacuum tubes, 7,200 crystal diodes, 1,500 relays, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors and an estimated 5 million hand-soldered joints. UNIVAC, the first commercial computer made in the United States and ran at a clock speed of 2.25 MHz. followed in 1952.  In 1954, Bell Labs introduced the first fully transistorized computer (TRADIC). IBM's 7090 from 1959, is the most famous early transistorized computer system that is considered the first modern mainframe computer. It offered an address-space of 32K (32,768) words and sold for a whopping $2.9 million, or $22.8 million in today's dollars. 

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